This is just my little space on the web to post my thoughts and comments. Sometimes stuff will be topical, sometimes I'll just throw in some old stuff I wrote. Sometimes it'll just be stream of consciousness and may not make much sense at all. Hey, it's mine and I can do what I want.
Eventually there'll be some links to other blogs and maybe to some websites that I peruse for whatever reason.

Sunday, September 25, 2016

SHINEONMOTHER

Finally getting back on the blog. Posting part of some thoughts I wanted to share with someone on Twitter, but you know me. 140 characters doesn't cut it.
@SHINEONMYMOTHER

Even after viewing both PD vids of Scott, too many questions. Why did cops draw their weapons? Are they claiming they saw a gun in the car? Why didn't one LEO go to wife, vet her ID, and let her get close enough to talk to him? Yelling just distracts everybody, both cops AND her husband. What were effects of his TBI? Was he easily confused? Could that have been a factor? Why didn't he just roll his window down and talk to officer, show his hands? It was clear there were cops aiming guns at him. Very confusing behavior!
Also, it looked to me, on the dashcam vid, that he opened the right door with his left hand, BACKED out of the vehicle with right hand kinda in front of something, like he didn't want them to see it. My assumption would be it's likely a weapon Then as he backs away, with arms down, it's even more confusing behavior. Now maybe his right arm had issues, either from his TBI or other injury. That would explain a lot of that behavior, and maybe if cops had talked to wife, she could have given them that information. That would give her more credibility than just shouting from the sidelines. Cops can't rely on that info as fact. Too dangerous to do so. Anybody in a crowd can shout that info. You must have seen other videos where the crowd is yelling at the cops. The cops have to tune them out so they can focus on what's happening, what they're saying to each other, what the suspect might be saying, what's coming over the radio. And if there is a gun, officers have to make split-second decision as soon as suspect begins to move his hand or arm. If he wants to turn his weapon over to cops, he needs to verbally make that clear, wait til the cops acknowledge they understand what he wants to do, then he needs to move v-e-r-y slowly, because any quick movement and shots will be fired.
This was a tragic shooting. Even if he had a gun, there are questions about the cops procedures. Whether those issues contributed to the shooting - I dunno.
But as it stands, it looks to me like there isn't enough evidence to charge any of the cops with wrongdoing. But, again, we don't have all the facts. And just because I couldn't, now, convict anybody if I was on the jury, that doesn't mean they didn't do anything wrong, or couldn't have done things differently. Because I think in this and the Tulsa shooting of Mr. Crutcher, poor procedure contributed to both shootings. The difference in the two was that Mr Crutcher had his hands up. Lots of ?s there, too. Like why was he walking toward HIS car? If cop thought situation called for gun, he shouldn't have been moving away from them. Justas he was being shot, after he turned toward car, it looked like he dropped one arm. Whether he was going to mopen the door or the Taser made him drop his arm, you can't tell.